Early in his State of the City Address, Mayor Jeffrey Mims, Jr. quoted the opening line from Whitney Houston's song, Greatest Love of All.
“I believe the children are the future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside," Mims said.
Wednesday morning, he shared his hopes for the city's youth in a relaxed sit-down conversation with seasoned journalist Marsha Bonhart. They held center stage at the Eichelberger Forum inside the downtown Dayton Metro Library. Other city leaders, employees, youth and community stake holders filled the audience.
Mims recounted the city's first Youth Summit—where more than 300 teens interacted with community leaders—discussing mental health issues, civic engagement, mentoring, and career paths.
Mims stressed he wants to initiate more job training opportunities beyond the classroom.
“We need to have more apprenticeship programs that allow them to do some work even while they're in school," Mims said. "Because we have right now, not just here in this region, but across the state, probably about three jobs for every one person. And those jobs do not all require college."
According to Mims in 2022, the city awarded $19 million to projects. They include: $1.8 million to repair homes in various neighborhoods, road repair and new sidewalks along lower Salem Avenue, work in the Arcade, $400,000 toward a new YMCA Health and Wellness Center in the former location of Good Samaritan Hospital. $60 million for downtown development, $2.4 million for a new food hall servicing the Wright, Dunbar and Wolf Creek Neighborhoods, $400,000 improvements at Triangle Park including $500,000 for a new dog park, a new 5 Rivers Health Center in Edgemont and a new mountain bike park in the Carillon Neighborhood.
Much of the funding for many of these projects comes from the $138 million in federal assistance Dayton received through the American Rescue Plan Act during the Covid Pandemic.
He also touted success in police reforms.
"We have far more citizens involved in a new process, how you get information on what happened before, the body cameras, license plate readers," Mims explained. "Additionally, we have a mediation center to handle some of these non-dangerous situations that citizens would normally call the police for."
According to the city, the Mediation Unit has handled more than one thousand calls since being activated. Mims also noted that soon all Dayton rec centers will have free wifi for patrons.
